Las Vegas Aces blow late lead, lose to Chicago

Everything was going exactly as the Aces would have wanted for their first game in the bubble.

Their two stars — A’ja Wilson and newly acquired Angel McCoughtry — were scoring at will and helped the Aces build a nine-point lead over the Chicago Sky with 4:26 to go.

But in the shortened 22-game season, finishing games will have added importance. The Sky did that better Sunday. They finished the game on an 11-0 run, capped by an off-balance 3-pointer from Allie Quigley with 14.7 seconds left, and the Aces lost 88-86 at Feld Entertainment Center in Bradenton, Florida, in the WNBA opener for both teams.

“It’s so surreal for me because I haven’t been out there for so long, but I think we have a lot of potential. We just let it slip in the last two minutes,” said McCoughtry, who played her first game in two years because of injury. “We had the game, but these are the learning experiences that we need for late in the season. It’s very early, and we have some work to do, but I’m proud of how we played today.”

The Aces will look to bounce back when they meet the Atlanta Dream on Wednesday.

McCoughtry finished with 25 points and eight rebounds, and Wilson added 22 points and 11 rebounds. The Aces won the rebounding battle 42-33, and Lindsay Allen had seven assists after being put in the starting lineup unexpectedly.

Dearica Hamby scored 12 points for Las Vegas, including a layup with 4:26 left that made the score 86-77. But the Aces went 0-for-10 from the floor and turned the ball over twice down the stretch.

Kahleah Cooper led the Sky with 18 points. She started Chicago’s final run with a layup and pulled her team within one with two free throws with 1:38 remaining to set up Quigley’s heroics. Quigley’s 3-pointer was the Sky’s ninth. The Aces were 0-for-5 from 3-point range.

“We talked about before the start of the bubble season that (Wilson and McCoughtry) were our two horses,” Aces coach Bill Laimbeer said. “We’re got to get some perimeter shooting. We didn’t make any 3 balls today, and they made nine. If you look at the stat sheet, that’s the difference in the game.”

While the Aces were disappointed by the result, they saw getting through the opener as a positive.

It was a difficult training camp for Las Vegas, as it battled injuries and finding a level of comfort with living in the bubble. The Aces also couldn’t have predicted what it would be like playing in front of no fans. While Hamby said she didn’t feel much different because players “kind of tune it out anyway, even when we’re at home,” Laimbeer described it as “eerie at times because there was no noise.”

“For the most part, it was about the game,” he said. “The players supplied the energy themselves when their teammates made good plays and pumped each other up when we had to call timeouts to keep it going. But it’s just very strange and different.”

Contact Jason Orts at jorts@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2936. Follow @SportsWithOrts on Twitter.